Implementing a Strategy in Real Life

Hello everyone,

It's now my second blog post and I am on my fourth day of internship at Immedia agency. I know that most of you have done more days till now but every single day of internship provides us with exceptional learning and experiences.

At my workplace today, 'happened' something that remembered me some of our assignments such as the famous Public Relations plans we've struggle to make during our past semesters. As being an event agency too, Immedia is actually busy planning one of their biggest event of this year: 'The Phantom of the Opera' with the Conservatoire de Musique Francois Mitterand. (CMFM)

Poster published in newspapers

If you click on the link above you will discover that this massive production was written for a while now by Gaston Leroux in 1909 which is now performed internationally (London, New York, Asia Pacific, Moscow, and many more). Obtaining a licence for such a production can be difficult but with the help of the contacts that Immedia agency has worldwide they have achieved it.

Since the announcement of the event, every week my employer tries to implement innovative strategies so that the event gains a maximum of public and media coverage. In addition of several radio spots and posters published in newspapers, my supervisor had a very creative idea to obtain more coverage and create a 'buzz' around the event.

He called it a "happening" before the event. The happening consisted of having the troupe of CMFM parade around the streets of the capital, attracting people with military drums and costumes from the show (see pictures below). It was decided to make this happening during lunch time where people would come out from their offices. As usual we had the duty to contact journalists to cover this minor event.

Pictures of the 'Happening'

This brought me back to when we had to find tactics to implement strategies we had in our PR plans. This time it was in real life! The happening was successful in my opinion as it attracted many people wondering the purpose of the parade who then would know more about the event which is schedule on the 29 and 31 August. It was successful also as 30 mins after this event photos were already posted on the Facebook page of l'Express 

Another similar type of 'Happening' will be held in a famous shopping mall (Bagatelle Mall of Mauritius) during the weekend which I strongly invite you to come and see them performing a preview of the show. Well, despite from the positive coverage we both had on the public and the press I found that their was a lack of structuring in the making of this mini event. For example, there was only a short brief by my supervisor about it and nothing on paper about the itinerary, the location of the interview with press (kind of being messy with all the people around) and also the police force was not contacted to inform them about the happening.

During the debrief I asked and pointed out these issues and my employer replied that these cannot be expected and that they had experience in this kind of happening and that it was "controlled". Being in that field since years, my supervisor built so many contacts that hereby we can see the difference between our well structured PR plan strategies on paper and the decisions taken on-the-job. It's their way of working and it is not a simple intern like me who is going to change this despite knowing that having a well structured tactic could eventually be of advantage to avoid or minimize issues mentioned. It was a nice experience though! I personally thought that this idea was unnecessary and wouldn't attract many people and instead would disturb them with the noise of the drums and undoubtedly I was wrong in thinking so. The mass - effect worked and people were attracted and many asked us questions about the purpose of the happening. A last word, as you all know Public Relations is all about having free publicity as compared to marketing and this promoting event was free, all posters, T-shirts, and further equipment were offered by our sponsors.

Thank you for reading and feel free to comment below about your personal views and opinions.

Mehdi



  

Organizing a Press Conference for a Client

                                      
Hello buddies,

It's my really first blog post and I am on my third day of internship at Immedia Agency. My first day started last week and it was quite relaxed I shall say. I came to met my new colleagues and discover my new working environment and how things work out there. I was really surprised to see a lot of newspapers of practically every media outlet in the country.

Basically Immedia is an Art, Entertainment, Advertising, and Public Relations agency mainly specialised in event making since 1987. Their events featured some artists like: Gad Elmaleh, Yannick Noah, Pascal Obispo, Khaled, Mathieu Chedid, and Groundation. At this point of time they are busy planning for two major events namely: The Phantom of the Opera and Tikoulou which will be held at the end of August and September respectively. 

On my second day, well, I received a phone call from my supervisor on the eve telling me to attend a press conference for one of their client. Before that, Immedia has as main client, Emtel World, whereby Immedia is in charge for some communication projects for CSR programs of Emtel.
This time both Immedia and Emtel are working together for the program: Emtel Painting Sensation 2014.
On the day of the conference I was quite anxious as it was my first press conference. We arrived early to settle everything. Then I discovered how things worked while organising a press conference, firstly when I entered I saw the sound technician installing the sound system and secondly the catering service settling a table with a lot of food! I haven't ate nothing since the morning and...   I was really hungry!

The first task my supervisor asked me to do was to welcome the journalists at the reception, take down their names and which media outlet they work for. I liked this task as there were some pretty nice journalists who gave me their phone numbers (I don't know if it was for working purposes or personal...).

I was already given a list of media outlets which had confirmed the invitation of my agency. After everything was settled in the room and that my supervisor had prepared the CEO of Emtel for his speech, I was given the signal to bring all the journalists upstairs.

After the conference, came the question time for journalists who did not ask too many question (only two in fact) and when I asked my supervisor why they didn't ask that much, he told me that journalists in Mauritius had become very lazy. In fact, I think that they were more interested in the food we were offering them.

The best part was when we invited everyone including the managers of Emtel and journalists to eat and drink something after the conference. It was a way to invite everyone to socialize and build contacts which is important when being a Public Relations practitioner or even a simple journalist. I myself was presented personally to the CEO and other managers at Emtel by my supervisor who gave me their business card too. The worst part was when everything was over and that we had to get back at the office and had to write the press release concerning the press conference.

To finish, I spent only three days and I already had some good experiences and there are more (including bad experience too)  to come. For the moment, Love My Job!

Mehdi